“You wake up in the morning, get dressed, put on your shoes, and you head out into the world. And you assume you’re going to come back home at night, go to sleep, and get up to do it again…”

“I woke up one morning, and I wasn’t wearing any of my own clothes…”

“I had two chest tubes, a hose going up my nose to drain my stomach, a catheter, and a morphine drip… At the end of my bed I could see the surgeon who had stayed up all night saving my life, and he was holding my foot. He had given me a 2 percent chance of living. Next to him were two homicide detectives…”

— from the story "Whatever Doesn't Kill Me," by Ed Gavagan

There aren’t many books that I would urge everyone to read. I mean, people have their own tastes and their own preferences and some people don’t like to read at all. But sometimes you come across a book, or most likely someone else urges you to read a book, that you instantly want to give to every single person you know.

A couple of nights before we left for California I had dinner with my godchild and her family. Her mum, Fiona, asked me if I’d ever heard of The Moth. I hadn’t. She briefly explained the premise, told me the book was wonderful and that I should read it but she couldn’t give me her copy because her son wasn’t finished it yet.

Cut to the night before we leave, my bag is mostly packed and I am organising what to put in my carry-on. I decide to download the book I’m currently reading onto my kindle to save space (it was huge) and think about getting one more, after all I do have two flights to take. The second book I download is The Moth. It’s the only one I can think of and I know that it comes highly recommended by an avid reader who’s taste I respect and admire.

I did not want it to end. I can’t tell you what it’s about because it is about everything. The Moth is “true stories, told live” and this is a collection of the best and the bravest and most beautiful stories I have ever read. The fact that they are true is all the better.

This is a book that I will buy for my friends, that I will wrap up and pass out ‘just because.’ I will purchase it for myself in real, proper book-form because some stories need the actual substance and smell and underline-ability of paper.

If you’re going to do anything this weekend can I recommend you read this book? You won’t regret it, I promise.

PS I took the first photo the other night in the greenhouse of our current ‘landlords’—it’s an erie, ethereal kind of place. The second photo is from here.